The Reconciliation
by xxPurpleStars3xx
Summary: Buffy gets a text from Marty asking to meet. They meet at The Spoon the next day. Marty wants to be friends again, but will Buffy agree?


_Can we talk?_

Those three words kept haunting Buffy as she made her way to The Spoon the day after the text was sent.

Marty.

The text was from Marty.

She hadn't heard from him in months. She knew he knew she was back. She didn't now who told him she was moving, though. She did appreciate that he finally conceded and told her she was faster, however.

The last time she had even talked to Marty was on the bridge when he had told her he liked her, and when she rejected him he just ran away. He was her friend—and she knew that breaking her friend's heart hurt—but she didn't expect him to stop speaking to her.

Well, until now.

" _What do I do?" Buffy asked Andi five minutes after she had gotten the text and then immediately called her best friend._

" _Um…see what he wants? He kind of apologized when you moved away. Maybe because you're both with other people it's better," Andi said._

 _Walker._

 _Walker, right. She was with Walker._

" _Should I even tell Walker?"_

 _She knew Andi shouldn't answer that, especially with Andi feeling weird about her seeing Walker, but it wasn't like the two were ever together, though._

" _Marty was just a friend. He_ _is_ _just a friend. Calm down and see what he wants. You never know, it might turn out to be good."_

So here she was standing in front of The Spoon. She took a deep breath and opened the door, finding Marty at a booth already with a soda in front of him. He turned around as soon as the sound of the door rung throughout the diner.

He gave a small smile and wave. She smiled and moved onto the bench across from him in the small booth.

"You got here early, eleven-point-five," she said, a little bit of teasing in her voice, but not much.

"I needed to get out of the house before I lost my mind. I ordered you a burger and drink by the way. Hope you don't mind. Extra napkins, too," Marty said, stirring his straw around the glass.

"Oh." That was Marty, always thoughtful. "So, why am I here?"

"I wanted to apologize in person now that you're back. I know I should've done this a long time ago before you moved, but I wanted you to know that I shouldn't have stopped talking to you after you rejected me. It was a terrible thing to do, and I really missed you."

Their food and Buffy's drink was set in front of them with her extra napkins. They switched their pickles and tomatoes like they usually did.

"You're right," she confirmed as she put her pickles on his sandwich, noticing that her basket was full of fries and his had none, which only meant he was planning on taking half of hers. "What you did was terrible, and it really hurt."

"I know I can't make up for all those months of not speaking, but is there any way we can go back to being friends?" Marty inquiried.

Buffy thought about it for a moment. Did she really want to go back to being friends with Marty? What if something happened and they stopped talking again? Could she go through that again?

"What does your girlfriend think of that?" she said. "Does she like you being friends with a girl that people accused you of flirting with?" She took a bite of her burger as he stole a fry. They both laughed a little, a bit of a break from the seriousness of the conversation.

"Wendy and I broke up months ago, so I highly doubt she would care." Marty rolled his eyes. "Besides, what does that have to do with anything? Would your boyfriend care?"

"How did you…?"

"Small town, people talk."

"Does it matter that I'm dating Walker?"

Marty took a bite of his burger and shook his head, but his eyes showed a little bit of hurt, betraying his motions and Buffy felt like she was back on that bridge, breaking both their hearts.

"Why would it matter?"

"Do you still like me?" she blurted out.

Marty wasn't even phased by the question. It was obvious to Buffy that he had probably been preparing for this question all morning and all of last night after she had texted and agreed to this meeting.

"No," he answered. "Those feelings are gone."

Again, his eyes betrayed him, and Buffy hated that she could read him so well, just like she knew he could read her just as well as Cyrus and Andi could.

"Really?" Marty nodded. "Huh. Let me ask you this one question then."

Marty stole another fry and said, "Anything."

"Why'd you break up with your girlfriend?"

"We're young?" Marty's answer came out more like a question than a statement. "Because we're young and feelings change and things don't work out the way you may always want them to. You and I probably know those things better than some others."

Marty held her eyes as he said this.

"So your ex-girlfriend wouldn't have a problem with us being friends again and you aren't harboring any secret feelings for me, anymore? Am I correct?"

"Yes," he said.

"And if those feelings come back?"

Marty took a moment to answer.

"Those feelings will be immediately pushed down so I won't come between you and Walker and we can be friends again."

"Do you promise to let me win a competition between us if we ever decide to race?"

Marty smiled and rolled his eyes.

"Not everything has to be a competition."

"But does it?" she asked and the two broke into another set of smiles.

They sat in comfortable silence until they had finished off their food and Marty had eaten half of Buffy's fries.

"So, can we say we're friends again? Please?"

"Do you promise to never do this again? If something happens, we keep being friends. Promise me at least that," Buffy said.

Marty held up his left hand and put his right hand on his heart and said, "Buffy Driscoll, I promise that if anything comes between us again we will never stop being friends. I can swear to you that."

Buffy nodded.

"Yeah, we can be friends again."

Marty broke out into a smile and the two got up and hugged for a short period of time, happy that they had made a truce.

"Thanks for the shoelaces and conceding to the fact I am faster than you, by the way," she said.

"Just another service I provide," he said.

"Yay!" another boy's voice shouted from the booth on the other side of the counter from theirs.

Buffy and Marty had been so focused on their truce and each other that they hadn't noticed Cyrus, Andi and T.J. sitting there looking at them, two of the three had smiles on their faces.

"Of course they're here," Buffy sighed, rolling her eyes.

"Is that T.J. Kippen?" Marty asked. Buffy nodded. "But, how? And why? And are Cyrus and him a couple, because they look like one."

"Yes, that's T.J., at this point who can guess because it honestly seems like they're dating but sometimes it doesn't, and I'll tell you how and why over ice cream, sound good?"

"I paid for lunch, you pay for ice cream?"

"Sounds good," Buffy said, taking Marty's hand to help her out of the booth.

They promptly disconnected hands and Marty held the door for his friend, ready for a new chapter in their friendship.


End file.
